"So, if you have cows, you are rich!" -Martin

Today was a long and busy day. First, I had to get up relatively early to go to get my phone. As I said yesterday, they had called yesterday, but I had class until after they closed. I finally go to the store at about 11 this morning. (It sometimes takes me a while to get my butt out of bed and then off of the computer.) Anyway, I got my phone! They ended up giving me a new one. It was still under warranty so it was completely free. Yay free new phone and no more pink one! It is the same model as before, just a new one.

Then I went to SupaBarn and Big W to pick up a few things. Afterwards, I came back to my flat for a little bit. I dropped off my stuff and checked facebook before leaving. I was meeting with Ruth at 12:30. Ruth is someone that my mom's old boss knows from when she did a sabbatical in Australia. She is a biology professor here and I contacted her with a few questions before I got here. She was very helpful.

Anyway, today we met at Teatro Vivaldi, which is a little restaurant in Union Court. I was waiting for her, but I didn't find her. Then I finally looked over again and saw her walking inside. I knew it was her because she said that she had red shoes on. I ran after her and then we met up. We went inside to order food and then we went outside to eat it. I offered to pay a couple of times, but she wouldn't let me. It's not my fault. You can't say that I didn't try.

I got the Chicken Schnitzel, which was the special today, and she got some nachos or something. I figured out why I see an American flag there so often. Each day of the week has a special from a different country. Wednesdays are American, aka a cheeseburger. Thursdays are German, or at least it was this week. Today was the celebration of Oktoberfest. ANU bar was having a big celebration, but I'll get to that later. There were also a bunch of people dressed up in lederhosen or as German barmaids running around Union Court.

Anyway, we sat outside and talked about various things. The different birds, the weather, Rohan, Christmas, my times in Australia, visas, indigenous issues, and biology research. It was a good lunch. She had to leave at about 1:30. I just decided to stay at Union Court to get the free wifi. I wanted to set up my phone and download a few apps. I'm too cheap to use up my internet plan for downloading stuff. It takes up too much data. Don't worry, Rohan, I didn't download Angry Birds.

I just relaxed in the sun for a while and caught up on Draw Something. It was a beautiful day today. It was about 20C (68F) and really sunny. The perfect weather, if you ask me. Then I had contemporary at 3. We just had student presentations today. It was pretty boring, but there were some good quotes that came out of class today.

• "So, if you have cows, you are rich!"- Martin; His group's presentation was on HIV transmission. He talked about the South Sudan and their culture. He claims that they way of life hasn't changed in 900 years, since the Roman times, and that rich people have cows. He meant that not saying that because cows are expensive, but because that's what they use as trade, such as a dowry for marriage.
• "Unless you're a machine."- Martin; He was again talking about the South Sudanese culture. It was something to do with polygamy and not being able to satisfy all of your wives unless you're a machine.
• "I can get as many women as I want, if I have enough cows."- Martin; Again, they pay dowry in cows and polygamy is allowed, so you can have as many wives as you want.
• Apparently from Martin's powerpoint slides, they have premarital sex with the parent-in-laws before they do with the spouse. Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate on this point. Janice and I were very intrigued, though.
• "Why are you molesting the desk?"- Me to Janice; I'm attaching this picture to better explain how  she was wrapped up in the desks. She had it between her legs!

• "Sniiifff"-Janice; So, when Janice pretends to be upset with something, she actually says "sniff." Most people would probably actually sniff or write *sniff* when typing it out to portray that they made the noise. Not Janice. She actually SAYS sniff!
• "Do I look like I have a lens and a flash to you?" - Karemah; So, Graham doesn't know how to pronounce names. At least, he never says Karemah or my name correctly. He calls me Cat-lin, or something like that, and he calls her something that sounds like camera. I was teasing her about this in contemporary today, which she retorted by asking if she looked like she had a lens or a flash.

After class, we went to ANU bar for Oktoberfest. A couple of the people that joined first semester wanted to get to know the second semester people better. It ended up that not very many people went. It was really busy at ANU bar, though. They had it closed off so that they could check IDs to get in. Karemah forgot her passport and couldn't get in. She doesn't have a proof of age card and they wouldn't accept her driver's license from back home. Klein and Alex went to get their passports from Toad, but Alex was too impatient to wait in line. 

It ended up just being Janice, Yasmin, and me for a while. Then Klein got back. Then KyLee joined. Greta was also there and stopped by for a bit. She was already sort of drunk when we got there. It was funny. Janice also got us some potato wedges to share. Interesting events...

• The tomato sauce had this weird squirt thingy. Like you can't just open it and dip. You push the two things together and it comes out the middle. I tried to figure it out, and ended up squirting myself in the eye. Yeah, I'm that cool.
• Greta drew on some balloons and tried to tie them to Janice's bag. I kind of spoiled her efforts by looking at what she was doing and causing Janice to look over at her. It's kind of hard to see, but the red one said "Janice" on one side and then it had a drawing of beer on the other.

• "He's wearing green undies."- Janice; I'm not sure why she felt the need to tell me this. She was just sitting there and looked over and saw a guy bending over. I asked her why she mentioned this and she said, "Because they're bright green." Um, ok...
• "A rubbish of accents"-Janice; Janice was trying to imitate different accents. She asked me what accent I wanted her to do. I told her Singaporean to try to get her to stop. She told me that I wouldn't understand it. I said that I just wanted her to talk in her own voice. She said that she doesn't have a Singaporean accent, but a rubbish of accents.
• "They should have queued up at the main line." *turns around* "Oh my F***ing Lord!"- Janice; Yasmin and KyLee went to get some more drinks from the line outside. It was a long line, so they were taking forever. Janice said they should have just gone to the main line, but when she turned around, she was shocked by how long the line was! Janice doesn't usually swear, at least not around me.
• Yasmin told us about Oktoberfest last year. It is much more contained this year. Last year, you could pretty much take the beer anywhere and they weren't checking IDs. She said that there was actually someone who died last year! I guess he was from the University of Canberra and came here with some friends. He got drunk and then was walking home. On his way home, he, for some reason, was swimming in the lake and drowned.
• There was security around making sure that people get in through the queues. There were people that kept trying to sneak in between the divider things that they put up around the area where the ANU bar meets the rest of the student union building. I'm sure they were over 18, they just didn't want to wait in line. It was funny to watch security come and kick them out. We also saw someone get kicked out because he was too drunk.
• The staff were all wearing lederhosen or German barmaid outfits. I tried to take a picture, but they ended up blurry.

• Klein told us that Graham is divorced and has three kids. I really want to meet this person that married him and these kids! Those poor children!

Afterwards, we decided to meet up with Heesook and Iris. They were coming back from eating dinner and we met up with them by IGA. Janice decided to buy a beer from IGA and I got some snickers. We then went back up to Heesook's flat. 

• "I'm going to divorce you soon!"- Janice to Heesook; Janice has all of these back-up husbands and wives. I really don't get it. Heesook is her back-up wife here. On the way to Heesook's flat, she said "poor Caitlin" when Janice said I still had to see her for the next two weeks and I corrected her in saying that it'd be much longer. After all, we still have next semester! Heesook wanted to paint Janice's nails, but Janice was saying that she wasn't going to let her any more because she was mean to her. I said, "but she's your wife!" Then Janice said that she was going to divorce Heesook soon. Then Iris pointed out that they weren't actually married, so they couldn't divorce.
• Janice thinks she's the love of my life. Um, sorry, Janice. I think that spot is already taken.
• "I wish he was gay. That would make him so much cooler!"- Janice; We had this suspicion that Graham might be gay. He doesn't wear a wedding ring, he never talked about being married or having kids, and his research is in brothels. How can a straight man spend that much time in brothels just doing research?! We just had a suspicion. That was taken away when Klein told us that he has three kids and is divorced. Janice was kind of upset and when she told Heesook, she commented on how it would be cooler if he was gay. Then Iris pointed out that maybe that was why he got divorced. Maybe he was using his wife as a beard. I highly doubt that, but it was still funny.
• "How do I breathe in?"- Heesook; Janice brought the balloons from Greta back to Heesook's. Heesook then decided to breathe in the helium to make her voice high. She didn't know what to do, so I told her that you breathe in. It was funny because she couldn't think of how to breathe in. She had to let it all out before putting the balloon up to her mouth so that her reflexes just breathed in for her.
• "I like to bite people."- Janice; Um, I don't remember what exactly happened. Heesook had her arm around Janice or something and then she asked if she could bite it. I just looked at her weirdly and she said that she likes to bite people. Janice is an odd person.
• Heesook painted Janice's nails and she kept messing them up. She was too antsy and wouldn't let them dry. At one point, she tried to get me to help her drink her beer, but that failed miserably. Here's a picture of her nails.

Then I came home. I started to write this blog and it has taken me a lllooooonnnnngggg time. A lot of things happened today! I better get to bed, though, because tomorrow from 9-2:30, I have a meeting for SIGN. I signed up to be a mentor for next semester. It will look good on my resume plus then I can go get free gelato. We all know it's really about the gelato!